The features of Mr. Lillyvick they were, but strangely altered. If ever an old gentleman had made a point of appearing in public, shaved close and clean, that old gentleman was Mr. Lillyvick. If ever a collector had borne himself like a collector, and assumed, before all men, a solemn and portentous dignity as if he had the world on his books and it was all two quarters in arrear, that collector was Mr. Lillyvick. And now, there he sat, with the remains of a beard at least a week old encumbering his chin; a soiled and crumpled shirt-frill crouching, as it were, upon his breast, instead of standing boldly out; a demeanour so abashed and drooping, so despondent, and expressive of such humiliation, grief, and shame; that if the souls of forty unsubstantial housekeepers, all of whom had had their water cut off for nonpayment of the rate, could have been concentrated in one body, that one body could hardly have expressed such mortification and defeat as were now expressed in the person of Mr. Lillyvick the collector.
Newman Noggs uttered his name, and Mr. Lillyvick groaned: then coughed to hide it. But the groan was a full-sized groan, and the cough was but a wheeze.
“Is anything the matter?” said Newman Noggs.
“Matter, sir!” cried Mr. Lillyvick. “The plug of life is dry, sir, and but the mud is left.”
This speech—the style of which Newman attributed to Mr. Lillyvick’s recent association with theatrical characters—not being quite explanatory, Newman looked as if he were about to ask another question, when Mr. Lillyvick prevented him by shaking his hand mournfully, and then waving his own.
“Let me be shaved!” said Mr. Lillyvick. “It shall be done before Morleena; it is Morleena, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Newman.
“Kenwigses have got a boy, haven’t they?” inquired the collector.
Again Newman said “Yes.”
“Is it a nice boy?” demanded the collector.
“It ain’t a very nasty one,” returned Newman, rather embarrassed by the question.
“Susan Kenwigs used to say,” observed the collector, “that if ever she had another boy, she hoped it might be like me. Is this one like me, Mr. Noggs?”
This was a puzzling inquiry; but Newman evaded it, by replying to Mr. Lillyvick, that he thought the baby might possibly come like him in time.
“I should be glad to have somebody like me, somehow,” said Mr. Lillyvick, “before I die.”
“You don’t mean to do that, yet awhile?” said Newman.
Unto which Mr. Lillyvick replied in a solemn voice, “Let me be shaved!” and again consigning himself to the hands of the journeyman, said no more.
This was remarkable behaviour. So remarkable did it seem to Miss Morleena, that that young lady, at the imminent hazard of having her ear sliced off, had not been able to forbear looking round, some score of times, during the foregoing colloquy. Of her, however, Mr. Lillyvick took no notice: rather striving (so, at least, it seemed to Newman Noggs) to evade her observation, and to shrink into himself whenever he attracted her regards. Newman wondered very much what could have occasioned this altered behaviour on the part of the collector; but, philosophically reflecting that he would most likely know, sooner or later, and that he could perfectly afford to wait, he was very little disturbed by the singularity of the old gentleman’s deportment.
The cutting and curling being at last concluded, the old gentleman, who had been some time waiting, rose to go, and, walking out with Newman and his charge, took Newman’s arm, and proceeded for some time without making any observation. Newman, who in power of taciturnity was excelled by few people, made no attempt to break silence; and so they went on, until they had very nearly reached Miss Morleena’s home, when Mr. Lillyvick said:
“Were the Kenwigses very much overpowered, Mr. Noggs, by that news?”
“What news?” returned Newman.
“That about—my—being—”
“Married?” suggested Newman.
“Ah!” replied Mr. Lillyvick, with another groan; this time not even disguised by a wheeze.
“It made ma cry when she knew it,” interposed Miss Morleena, “but we kept it from her for a long time; and pa was very low in his spirits, but he is better now; and I was very ill, but I am better too.”
“Would you give your great-uncle Lillyvick a kiss if he was to ask you, Morleena?” said the collector, with some hesitation.
“Yes; uncle Lillyvick, I would,” returned Miss Morleena, with the energy of both her parents combined; “but not aunt Lillyvick. She’s not an aunt of mine, and I’ll never call her one.”
Immediately upon the utterance of these words, Mr. Lillyvick caught Miss Morleena up in his arms, and kissed her; and, being by this time at the door of the house where Mr. Kenwigs lodged (which, as has been before mentioned, usually stood wide open), he walked straight up into Mr. Kenwigs’s sitting-room, and put Miss Morleena down in the midst. Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs were at supper. At sight of their perjured relative, Mrs. Kenwigs turned faint and pale, and Mr. Kenwigs rose majestically.
“Kenwigs,” said the collector, “shake hands.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Kenwigs, “the time has been, when I was proud to shake hands with such a man as that man as now surweys me. The time has been, sir,” said Mr. Kenwigs, “when a wisit from that man has excited in me and my family’s boozums sensations both nateral and awakening. But, now, I look upon that man with emotions totally surpassing everythink, and I ask myself where is his honour, where is his straight-for’ardness, and
